They are not monk feats. I don't see why a monk should be allowed to use it four times as much as a Brawler (or any other class for that matter). Sure it would help the monk, but why make feats exclusively better for a monk?

Well the brawler in particular counts as a monk for purposes such as these (martial training).

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If it had the special monk language it would also draw from the uses of Stunning Fist per day.

The uses would not cannibalize on each other, they're entirely separate pools of abilities.

It seems as though dazing fist, befuddling strike, and paralyzing strike are modeled after stunning fist, touch of serenity & co. Yet the 3 from ACG do not have the clause regarding monk's getting 1 use per level per day. Is this intentional?

What happens when the spellcaster has made a mistake and doesn't live to see the next day?

We are arguing over the disparity between the classes, which is basically the versatility and power granted via spell casting. I'm not following the point you're trying to make. I'm genuinely not trying to be rude :) But fatal mistakes are the consequences which motivate all players of all classes to play well. And so to answer your literal question: The same as any/every other class applied in equal fashion.

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This is the problem with the basic assumption you're making. You are also assuming that you will always be able to escape to rectify your errors.

I do not understand the point you are making. I want to gauge it fairly, if you will please restate your premise and perhaps use an example. "is the problem with the basic assumption you're making" I'm making no such assumption.

--PC

You said that casters can change their spell selections daily to deal with new problems. That is a very true and certainly inarguable statement. The problem isn't that they can change their spells daily. The problem is that you, and others that tout the superiority of casters, assume that they live to do so. If they make a few poor choices on Monday, they may not live long enough to change their spell selection for Tuesday.

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This part isn't directed at you

There is obviously a disparity between the classes and it is easy to see. However, I don't think it's as big of a gap as people claim. As was pointed out earlier in the thread (and in many other threads too), the easiest way to deal with the disparity is to start with enforcing the rules. When GMs don't force the wizard to take the time to learn new spells they find and simply let them add the spell to the spellbook, it is a ruling that favors the wizard. A spell should take 1 hour plus an additional number of hours equal to its spell level to scribe into the book. That means these high...

Nitpick: Gandalf really didn't cast any high level spells. His most impressive display was in his dealings with Saruman where you could argue that is at tops telekinesis. Saruman, however, at least has like control weather which is a 7th level spells compared to Gandalf's 5th.

On a more serious note: Here's the thing about pulling out those scribing numbers. In many ways they do not matter. This doesn't affect the sorcerer, oracle, cleric, Druid, bard, summoner, and inquisitors. The wizard simply does it with the most flashiness. Also the wizard can circumvent this in many ways. Starting at level 5, the wizard has a safe haven from which to scribe their spells. Also with good forethought on spell selection, the wizard really only needs like 1/4 of the spells, tops, in order to do everything they need to do between spells like shadow X, polymorph X, summon monster X, and illusion X. You would be surprised how far a well played wizard can take their 40 odd spells, after all sorcerers had to live with about that many until the APG gave them the human option.

Ok, so who all can take this feat? If the semicolons mean "or", then any level 3 fighter can take it, which makes this feat a touch too strong IMO. If the semicolons mean "and" then it is immensely difficult to qualify for and doesn't do much.

Eh, with dervish and agile weapon available, I don't see much reason to go Str over Dex. Just the 13 in str for power attack, and you get to use Dex for to-hit and damage. That way you get better reflex saves (your bad one), AC, and initiative.

Sohei does not modify the Flurry of Blows class ability, hence he cannot flurry in armor.

-- He simply has proficiency.

Ahem. Monks can Flurry in armor by RAW. I think the only things they lose are Fast Movement and Monk AC.

Lightbulb wrote:

The D&D rules are TERRIBLY ambiguous. They could do with a proper rule book like Magic or something...

I agree with you. Though I refuse to acknowledge the current edition of the official M:tG Rules. I'm still very bitter about the maximum amount of life, and the removal of Mana Burn. I dont play in tournaments, and I refuse to play with those two rules changes. > Yes, I have several decks focused on those two rules mechanics. lol.

D&D Rules are ambiguous, but the purpose they serve makes them often need to be interpreted like M:tG rules; so the vague rules end up needing to be read as though they were well defined. Thats often why they need errata.

Actually the claim that they put a maximum life limit is patently false as indicated by reading all entries in the comprehensive rules containing the word "life".

Must haves for arcana IMO are arcane accuracy, ghost blade, and bane blade. Arcane accuracy is a very big boost to your attack, ghost blade allows you to deal with very annoying thing and bane blade is pure numbers goodness since you declare the bane on use. I think Dex builds are better for the Kensai because they are already not wearing armor. If you go Aldori Dueling blades, then be sure to get the Agile weapon ability to give Dex to damage at cost of a +1. Even for a Dex build, you will still want 13 Str for power attack.

I find that the system starts to break down once you go past level 20.

A conversation we've had many times and a standpoint I agree with, if for nothing other than the magic side. Truly expanding the scope of magic spells in power beyond what is represented for Level 9 starts to border on ridiculous.

Which is why you don't. By 9th level spells you can play god, including creating new planes of existence. The only reason you need higher level spell slots is for saving throw DCs and metamagic. Truthfully, the biggest hurdle I find with going beyond 20th level is dealing with caster level limits. For example, a lot of spells say "Up to xd6" or something like that. The easiest fix for that would be a feat that increases all level-based effects by 5 for each spell level slot higher than it would normally take. So if you prepped fireball as a 4th level spell, it would go up to 15d6, and prepping it as a 7th level spell could get up to 20d6, and 8th up to 25d6, etc. Capping at your actual caster level, of course.

Maybe call it Improved Heighten Spell or something. Make it increase the level of the spell and what-not. You could also make a feat such as Improved Spell Deflection, which made globes of invulnerability increase the level of spells blocked by 1/8th your caster level (so a globe of invulnerability which normally blocks up to 4th level spells would block up to 7th level spells at 24th level, etc).

I think that if you just spent your money on quadratically increasing items with the max bonus = 1/3 level, then you will actually have a pile of money because the WBL grows faster than quadratic I think. I haven't done the math.

I really like Ashiel's adjustment to staves that was posted last time staves got brought up (like a week ago). She suggested that staves get changed to X times per day where things that used multiple charges used up multiple uses of the staff and that the standard staff pricing scheme is based off of a 5/day.

Maybe haste / black tentacles. They're powerful, sure, but if they were each 1 level higher, we'd simply pick the next most powerful spells in line and complain about them.

Actually that is plainly false. What you did was to perform an inductive step. There logically must exist some spells that we would not complain about. If your statement was true, then we would bump up the next most powerful spells and complain about the next next most powerful spells. This line of logic is independent of the number of spells. Therefore we repeat this until we run out of third level spells. This logic is also independent of spell level. Therefore, in order for your reasoning to be valid, we must excise all spells from all spell lists.

Actually no. I didn't say we'd do it ad nauseum. Furthermore if you'd like to look at the switch from 3.0 - 3.5 or 3.5 - pathfinder, you'll notice it happened then as well. How many people really complained that haste was over powered in 3.5 when we had shivering touch?

Since people are complaining about the most powerful spells, it has formed a complete circle with no explicit reason to stop since all the reasoning was relative.

Well if you go Dervish Dance, that does allow you to effectively dump Str. This will allow you to bring it down to 4 stats (Dex, con, int, wis). If you focus enough on AC, you don't need that high of a con either. Having three stats to AC certainly outdoes any armor out there.

Simple. Take magical lineage (through additional traits at level 3 if GM is nitpicky) on scorching ray. Heighten Scorching Ray. It is now a third level spell. Magical Lineage will reduce the spell's adjusted spell level by 1, so you may cast it from a second level spell slot. You are able to cast more than one of these. Therefore you are able to cast third level arcane spells.

@callarek: it merely says that you have to meet the prerequisites for the class and the classes do not have the indicated stat scores as prerequisites. Also it does not make mention of any differentiation between having the feat and being able to use the feat.

It's also worth mentioning that you can get the Dimensional Dervish feat through eldritch knight, horizon walker, summoner, or dragon disciple at the same or even lower levels. The only reason monks get it much later in the game is because they don't get abundant step until 12th level.

And sadly, they're the ones that need it the most to get off those full attacks.

Advanced technology along with the craftsmanship involved in making one. It probably takes a while to make them as well.

Well if you take a level 5 guy, you will likely have a +2 int, so total craft bonus is +10. Average result is a 20 and assuming that it takes a DC 20 to make. Then it will take 2.5 weeks to make. So quite a well indeed.

Sure you got a dead feat or two, but getting the ability to do something 5 levels faster can very easily cause balance issues.

In general, feats are not balanced according to when you should get them, but according to how powerful they are. Feats that you shouldn't be able to take until later levels should have a "level X" prereq, rather than "you shouldn't be able to take this until level X, so we'll put a couple of crappy feats in as prereqs to delay when you can actually take this feat until level X."

Yes, and your ruling allows characters to maneuver around this as I have demonstrated with the monk.

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erik542 wrote:

Consider the feats split major hex and using additional hex to get an additional major hex. You have to chose between the two normally, but now you can do both.

How so? Extra Hex says "You must meet all of the prerequisites for this hex." So while you could take the feat at level 1, you can't use it to get a major hex because you don't learn major hexes until witch level 10.

That is because you choose to take split major hex at 17 and then pick extra hex at 19.

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erik542 wrote:

This also affects prestige classes pre-reqs.

Can you identify a prestige class in the Core Rulebook where allowing someone to select a feat earlier than they could use it would allow you to enter the prestige class before character level 6?

While it isn't early entry, it is still a bypass of prerequisites. You no longer need int 15 to take cypher mage (inner sea magic), no longer need Str 13 for liberator from Pathfinder Companion: Second Darkness Player's Guide, no longer need Dex 15 for red mantis assassin from Inner Sea World Guide (this not trivial as it allows Str builds instead only Dex builds), and no longer need Dex 13 for Student of War from Pathfinder Chronicles: Seeker of Secrets (allows you to dump Dex without sucking up AC).

You could be devoted to Asmodeus, but your idea of who/what Asmodeus is and what it means to worship him could be different from the cultural norm. For example, you could believe that Asmodeus is about the light of fire and the pain of truth correcting the wickedness and corruption of the world. You could sneer at and disdain the decedent and power hungry orthodox church as being ripe targets for the light bringer.

That doesn't really work in a world where you can literally just ask the big man yourself once you reach level 9. If the high priests have a disagreement over some issue, they are just a simple Commune away from the answer.

But what if the answers that the orthodox Asmoediun cleric gets back from the casting of commune differ from the answers that the hetrodox cleric gets back from the casting of the same spell? The DM determines how the deity replies, after all...

Why would Asmodeus answer differently to one cleric than to another? Doing it for the evilulz doesn't make much sense for a LE deity.

It could be that the subtle machinations of the great deceiver are not designed to put mortal philosophers and theologians at ease. Or it could be that there are multiple Asmodeuses that exist across a series of world lines and that complete for control of each soul's reality.

I'm not following you erik. The monk won't be able to dervish any sooner than usual. And for those levels he can't use the feat, he's missing the feat slots he's spent and not getting any benefit from any of the other feats he could have taken.

Using standard rules, the monk cannot dervish until level 17. He gets abundant step at 12, dimensional agility at 13, dimensional assault at 15, and dimensional dervish at 17. Using SKR's rules he can pick up ability at 7, assault at 9 and dervish at 11. At level 12, he meets the prerequisites for all three feats and thus can dervish 5 levels sooner. A more realistic build does agility at 9, assault at 11, and dervish at 13 to cut down on the dead feats while still getting dervish a whopping 4 levels early. A number of monk builds don't have much crucial going on around that time either IIRC. But my point about split major hex stands. Take split major hex at 17, you have one feat that's dead for one level and then use additional hex for another major hex. Normally that's impossible Pre-epic.

Basically that's how it goes. Things would only become more complicated if we started adding proximitiex to natural attacks. Also, you're trying to apply realism to a creature that breathes fire/acid/whatever and flies faster when it gts bigger.

Bracers of Armor cannot have a modified Bonus higher than +8. So you're looking at a maximum of +5 Wild Bracers. Unless you have 64,000 GP burning a hole in your pocket, potions of Mage Armor (or a friendly Wizard) are generally preferrable for the cost.

Why can't they have a modified bonus higher than +8?

If you'd said +10, I could see why, but I see no reason why they'd be limited to a modified +8.

You could be devoted to Asmodeus, but your idea of who/what Asmodeus is and what it means to worship him could be different from the cultural norm. For example, you could believe that Asmodeus is about the light of fire and the pain of truth correcting the wickedness and corruption of the world. You could sneer at and disdain the decedent and power hungry orthodox church as being ripe targets for the light bringer.

That doesn't really work in a world where you can literally just ask the big man yourself once you reach level 9. If the high priests have a disagreement over some issue, they are just a simple Commune away from the answer.

But what if the answers that the orthodox Asmoediun cleric gets back from the casting of commune differ from the answers that the hetrodox cleric gets back from the casting of the same spell? The DM determines how the deity replies, after all...

Why would Asmodeus answer differently to one cleric than to another? Doing it for the evilulz doesn't make much sense for a LE deity.

Ideally, you could take any feat you want, but couldn't use it unless you meet its Prerequisites. I think it's one of those unnecessary restrictions we inherited from 3.5; we got rid of a lot of them, but there are still some buried here and there.

In other words: If you're willing to pay for the cost of a feat, even if the Prerequisites mean you can only use it sometimes, you should be able to learn the feat, because you're paying the cost to learn the feat.

If I'm willing to spend $100,000 to go through NASA's astronaut training, even though I'll never be an astronaut, let me spend that money--and who knows, maybe I'll be the one passenger on the spaceship who can land the thing when the pilot has a heart attack. :p If a fighter who normally wears half-plate and carries a tower shield wants to put ranks in Acrobatics, nobody says, "you'll never be able to make an Acrobatics check because of your armor check penalty, therefore you aren't allowed to put ranks in Acrobatics, dummy."

Removing this sort of restriction also allows players to plan ahead. Frex, if you have Str 12, you could take Power Attack at level 3 because at level 4 you're going to put your +1 into Str. Likewise, a monk who's close to the BAB breakpoint could take PA because he's going to take some fighter levels. If a sorcerer wants to put ranks in Fly at level 1, even though she won't be able to learn fly until level 6, that's fine--and no more world-absurd than her suddenly putting a bunch of ranks into Fly at level 6 as soon as she gains the spell.

In other other words, it's okay to let players make character choices that don't have a direct, immediate mechanical benefit. In the real world, it's common to teach people things that they won't use for months or years, or let them learn things that they'll never have a practical use for.

I vehemently disagree. What this does is that it removes the gating of feats. A good example would be the dimensional dervish feat tree. Under your interpretation, a monk could simply take the dimensional feats early. Thus once they reach level 12, the monk is suddenly able to dervish with his abundant step. Sure you got a dead feat or two, but getting the ability to do something 5 levels faster can very easily cause balance issues. Consider the feats split major hex and using additional hex to get an additional major hex. You have to chose between the two normally, but now you can do both. This also affects prestige classes pre-reqs.

"Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity."

Emphasis mine. That is the rule for Spell Trigger items in general. You need the word to activate any spell trigger item.

Also it is vague on what word is to be spoken. It doesn't say a single command word is spoken, just any old word will do.

Maybe haste / black tentacles. They're powerful, sure, but if they were each 1 level higher, we'd simply pick the next most powerful spells in line and complain about them.

Actually that is plainly false. What you did was to perform an inductive step. There logically must exist some spells that we would not complain about. If your statement was true, then we would bump up the next most powerful spells and complain about the next next most powerful spells. This line of logic is independent of the number of spells. Therefore we repeat this until we run out of third level spells. This logic is also independent of spell level. Therefore, in order for your reasoning to be valid, we must excise all spells from all spell lists.

You could be devoted to Asmodeus, but your idea of who/what Asmodeus is and what it means to worship him could be different from the cultural norm. For example, you could believe that Asmodeus is about the light of fire and the pain of truth correcting the wickedness and corruption of the world. You could sneer at and disdain the decedent and power hungry orthodox church as being ripe targets for the light bringer.

That doesn't really work in a world where you can literally just ask the big man yourself once you reach level 9. If the high priests have a disagreement over some issue, they are just a simple Commune away from the answer.

Where do you get a program to run population dynamics simulations on D&D? Who wrote it? What assumptions did they make about the world and the system? What assumptions did they make about motivations? How did it simulate gods and other outsiders? How did it take into account various magic items? Wealth? Feats?

I'm a programmer, and I know a bit about simulations on computers. They are only as good as the assumptions that go into them, and the accuracy of the data fed into them. If the assumptions are wrong, or the data faulty, then the results are garbage. Without knowing where you got your information, Erik542, your post is mostly just random words on a screen.

Serious scientific simulations (which require very large computers, or vast arrays of weaker computers, like fold at home project) take years to set up correctly for simulations, with testing over and over again with control samples. Since PF hasn't been around that long, I seriously doubt anyone's done any serious coding on a simulator.

I wrote it using MATLAB. It used fairly simplistic assumptions. I assumed that people would fight other people randomly. I greatly simplified combat down to a single die roll. If your opponent was higher level, the chance of winning was 2^(-(N+1)) where N = their level - your level. Basically assumed that leveling up made you twice as strong. In retrospect I should run it assuming two levels made you twice as strong given the XP tables in both 3.5 and PF. Also winning a fight caused you to automatically level up while losing fight effectively reset you back to level 1 (in real terms, death rate = birth rate). Not too in depth, but enough to get the general structure of the population; also short enough for me to write in a few hours. I had a population of 20000 and ran it over 2.5 million fights. While the random fighting seems unreasonable at face value, it is a good compromise between people avoiding higher opponents and higher level opponents seeking out easy prey. Also one can justify the fast leveling by balancing the effect of resurrection; this essentially assumes that resurrection occurs about 93% of the time.

Interesting note: there is a minor spike in population near the level cap because I made it so that people do not get more powerful at level 20.

The effects of adjustments to this model:
If one wants to lower the resurrection rate, then this will cause people to level slower and thereby cause the population to be of a lower level.
Emphasizing the ability for higher level opponents to selectively fight lower level opponents will create a gulf between high level and low level with a larger portion of the population being 15+ and a near empty desert between 5 and 15. (Forgotten Realms essentially)
Emphasizing the ability to avoid getting sniped by high level opponents will cause the population to almost entirely be low level because the high levels will only be able to kill each other off.
Giving lower level guys a higher chance to beat higher level guys will cause the average level to go up. I believe that even with the adjustment of two levels = twice as strong, most of the population will still be level 5 or less. It will just mean that Einstein is level 8 instead of level 5.

Yeah, in order for you to have this on a weapon, it needs to be a +2 item. By time you are getting those, you are about level 6-8 where you are already hitting very reliably. I'd consider it The bonus were a +4 and I were munching my attack bonus for something.

If you run a population dynamics simulation assuming that people fight regularly, then you will find that it will be accurate that 90% of the world is level 5 or less (I gave exponential odds for overcoming level difference). Because of the exponential difficulty overcoming the level difference, the graph of population vs level was an exponential decay (assuming death was the result of a fight and a new level 1 guy would take his place).

The point of the categorization is to serve as a reference material. This way when you hit level 7 and find yourself lacking in the debuff category, you can quickly compare all the debuff spells against each other. It is less of matter of being a way to judge spells, and more of a way to catalog spells that have been independently judged.

I usually feel a bit disappointed with dragons. This could come down to me not GMing encounters with them very well, but I always like them to be bigger and tougher. The last time I threw a green dragon at my group, the paladin almost ended the encounter in one round.

Big thing to remember is that they have a good int score and they are old. Therefore between being smart and experienced, you can justify the use of almost any advanced tactic. One of my favorites is from OOTS actually. Dragon casts anti magic field on itself. They have a fly speed of like 100. If they need buff time, they can simply fly up to get it. The only thing I don't get is why they don't have flyby attack. Don't let the PC's dictate the terms engagement against a dragon. If it is old enough to have that mythic feel to it, it knows better. Also don't stick it in a cave.

Mirage Arcana? Really? You've obviously never been single handedly beaten by Mirage Arcana. This is the real secret of how Aboleths beat people. There are a few things that make it really bad news (when used effectively). First is that it automatically gives you surprise round. Second, you really don't get a save until it's too late. Third it lasts all day (it's concentration + 1 hour per level).

I personally would have done the type groupings as follow: buff, debuff, battlefield control, damage, utility, other. Expansive enough to be helpful, yet broad enough to serve as functional categories across all spell levels.